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Aug 9, 2024 | 
smh.com.au | Lucy Sussex
FICTION DirrayawadhaAnita HeissSimon & Schuster, $32.99 It is a truism that travel broadens the mind. Linguists say that learning a second language re-programs it. Language explains the world to humans; and its many complexities, from tonal languages to those with grammatical gender, are a perfect wonder. Consider the Australian Indigenous languages, such as Dyirbal in North Queensland, where lexical rules classify what is edible, or a vegetable.
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Aug 9, 2024 | 
theage.com.au | Lucy Sussex
By Lucy Sussex August 9, 2024 — 4.00pm, register or subscribe to save articles for later. Save articles for laterAdd articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. FICTIONDirrayawadhaAnita HeissSimon & Schuster, $32.99It is a truism that travel broadens the mind. Linguists say that learning a second language re-programs it. Language explains the world to humans; and its many complexities, from tonal languages to those with grammatical gender, are a perfect wonder.
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Jun 2, 2024 | 
overland.org.au | Alan Fyfe |Scott-Patrick Mitchell |Murdoch Stephens |Lucy Sussex
Scott-Patrick Mitchell’s Clean (Upswell 2022) and Alan Fyfe’s T (Transit Lounge 2022) are books with a deep relation. A poetry collection and a novel respectively, Clean and T were released within less than a year of each other and attracted multiple award listings; and both deal with methamphetamine use in Western Australia, a state which consumes the drug at almost twice the national average. The authors share a longstanding friendship.
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Sep 22, 2023 | 
smh.com.au | Lucy Sussex |Steven Carroll
American novelist Daniel Mason wrote this book in a year, each chapter corresponding to the month. That year ranges through centuries in the history of a house. It also romps through a series of experiments in form and genre, from case history to true crime and letters. Here be gay lovers, slavecatchers, orchardists and even an invasive pest. North Woods is also an eco-history, with echoes of Richard Powers' The Overstory.
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Sep 21, 2023 | 
brisbanetimes.com.au | Lucy Sussex |Steven Carroll
By Lucy Sussex and Steven Carroll September 22, 2023 — 4.00pm, register or subscribe to save articles for later. Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. FICTION PICK OF THE WEEKNorth WoodsDaniel Mason, John Murray, $32.99American novelist Daniel Mason wrote this book in a year, each chapter corresponding to the month. That year ranges through centuries in the history of a house.
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Sep 13, 2023 | 
smh.com.au | Lucy Sussex |Fiona Capp
Fiction about Neanderthals ranges from Isaac Asimov, William Golding to James Bradley, and now Sebastian Faulks. His topic is in constant flux, with amazing discoveries. It risks a novel's sudden obsolescence. Moreover, he is out of his usual historical territory. Conveying complex science is also tricky, though Faulks has a red-hot go with making synthetic sperm. Here, mad scientists do not figure, rather an eccentric billionaire. Resurrection Biology using IVF produces Seth, 51 per cent Neanderthal.
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Sep 6, 2023 | 
smh.com.au | Lucy Sussex |Steven Carroll
Kate Grenville has always had an interest in Australian women's lives. She has written Lilian's Story, her mother's life, and now her grandmother's. Dolly was a hard woman - she had to be or go under. She was born to hard rural work, her ambitions for further education thwarted. Daughters could only marry, and even here Dolly had difficulties. Instead of being destroyed by domesticity, she took to small business, like a determined duck to a pond.
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Sep 6, 2023 | 
brisbanetimes.com.au | Lucy Sussex |Steven Carroll
By Lucy Sussex and Steven Carroll September 7, 2023 — 5.00am, register or subscribe to save articles for later. Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. FICTION PICK OF THE WEEKRestless Dolly MaunderKate Grenville, Text, $45Kate Grenville has always had an interest in Australian women’s lives. She has written Lilian’s Story, her mother’s life, and now her grandmother’s. Dolly was a hard woman — she had to be or go under.
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Aug 30, 2023 | 
smh.com.au | Lucy Sussex |Fiona Capp
Writing the young is hard, and worst when they are in an abusive situation. Catherine Chidgey's novel tells of innocence becoming experience, gradually, and her form is the psychothriller. Justine is 12, and has a crush on her charismatic teacher, Mrs Price. What anchors the book is the precise details of a New Zealand childhood from late last century, the games, lessons and lolly cigarettes. Sinister is a constant undertone, from petty thefts and casual racism to the school's Catholic doctrines.
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Aug 8, 2023 | 
overland.org.au | Andrew McLean |Jeff Sparrow |Lucy Sussex
It’s almost impossible to recall one’s childhood in favourable terms without coming across as sheepishly wistful. Speaking one’s nostalgia is a conversation ender—like telling someone about your dreams. In political discourse, nostalgia is often seen as something more insidious and symptomatic of clinging and coveting an ill-defined and pathos-infused past.
